Three Million Moments

From the Family Dinner to Family Disco

March 5th, 2007

For all those Gen X moms and dads, there is hope beyond a few hours of blinking and buzzing Chuck E. Cheese style. Now there is something for parents and kids to truly enjoy together and get some exercise. Baby Loves Disco takes over Club Element in Manhattan’s LES March 10th. It’s an afternoon dance party with real music spun by real DJs. As a matter of fact, Baby Loves Disco is taking over one night-club at a time, all across the country, providing a little special “we” time that excludes the likes of Barney and Teletubbies.

There is an interesting shift in parenting happening, and at it’s root is a deep passion for spending time with your children, sharing activities and experiences. Moms and dads are prioritizing time with their children. They aren’t leaving them at home while they take vacations, they take them with them. They get home by 6PM so they can feed and bath them, and put them to bed themselves, even if it means working a few hours later to catch up. Child-rearing is not an obligation, it is a joy.

Let’s be clear, it’s not about mom and dad giving up part of themselves to accommodate some societal idea of what they should do. In fact, if you tried to tell them what they should do they wouldn’t listen. No, mom and dad are very self-aware and are fulfilling themselves in a multitude of ways. One very important way is by sharing their lives with their kids. Discovering something about themselves through the process. Mom and Dad are taking care of themselves by taking care of their kids. Giving to themselves.

The family dinner is just one way they are sharing time together, but their are thousands of opportunities ripe for innovation that would provide more “we time” for families. Places like the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn hit the parent-child-we-time-sweet-spot (I happen to be working from Tea Lounge as I am writing this). It’s a menagerie of Apple and non-Apple (PC) users, Maclarens and Bugaboos, serenaded by coos, and yes cries (no, my daughter is not here with me right now, but I still enjoy the family vibe). Tea Lounge is a free wireless hotspot-family-friendly-entertainment-eatery, complete with children’s concerts on weekdays and movies in the evening. It’s really not about the food (as much as I love the decadent Fluffer-nutters and all shade grown, organic, fair trade coffee at fraction of the Starbucks price). It’s about the community. It’s about a place where kids and grown-ups not only co-exist, they commingle.

Today’s kids are growing up in what seems to be child-friendly, adult-friendly environments with child-friendly, adult-friendly activities. If that is the case, are they growing up to soon? Are adults just trying to recapture the feeling of their own childhood? Or are we creating something highly inclusive that allows the best of both worlds with the support of our communities and loved ones.

Entry Filed under: Future of Good